


Thedas go Brách

by ShannaraIsles



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Adjusting to new life, Anxiety, Convenient life skills that translate across to Thedas from Earth, Developing Friendships, F/M, Focus on interpersonal relationships, MGiT, Modern Girl in Thedas, New beginnings sort of story, Parallel to Main Story Arc, References to Depression, Romance, Slow Burn, can you tell I'm terrible at tagging?, linear narrative, shameless self-insert, with time skips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 11:08:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15706011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShannaraIsles/pseuds/ShannaraIsles
Summary: A land of magic, of dragons, of dreams. A woman out of place, unable to leave. A man who cannot be the hero he might wish to be. An Inquisition, that needs all the help it can get. Interwoven, drawn together, they must be everything they can be to each other, or nothing will ever be the same again.Thedas ... forever.(A Modern Girl In Thedas story)





	1. Prologue

Hot water falling on tired limbs at the end of a long day, loosening the painful tightness of shoulders held too long at attention ...

... enclosed by glass, her own small world narrowed down to this moment, this heat, this quietness broken only by the patter of water onto ceramic ...

... eyes close, lungs empty, the knotted cord of that old friend anxiety promises to relax its grip on her chest ...

... a rushing sensation, light-headed feeling of falling while standing straight, pain that vibrates through every nerve ...

... panic rising, clouding, fogging, denying coherent thought ...

... hands fly out to steady herself against the glass door of the cubicle, and find nothing but air ...

... cold air, frozen air, air that hums and reverberates in her skull, blossoming headache fueled by the growing sound of screams ...

... ankle deep in icy brittleness, the flash of freezing wind on warm skin turning a light head to a murky mire of throbbing aches and blurred vision ...

... no glasses to clear that vision, the world suddenly a blur of moving shapes around her, flickering green light above, crisp whiteness below ...

... bodies jostle against hers, hands pushing, pulling, punching; voices that scream _demon_ and _witch_ ...

... growing pressure of breath too fast, heart too quickened, bare feet unsteady on snow that bites, fear that chokes, voice clenched tight in a throat that will not release a sound ...

... something dark in what must be hand rushing close; a numbing impact of scraping pain against her temple, hands too busy hiding her nakedness to protect herself ...

... darkness looms, envelopes, overwhelms, as more pain blossoms with a fall into the unexpected snow ...

 

* * *

 

... jelly-legged feeling that does not keep to legs, filling her body with lazy paralysis as consciousness returns ...

... a sense of lying prone, twisted awkwardly, torso settled on her back, hips tilted, legs bent, one hand beside her mouth, one thrown carelessly over her stomach, unable to gather the will or strength to shift even as the aches rush to make themselves known ...

... the sweet acrid sting of smokey incense in her lungs, overlaying something thicker, more bodily, less pleasant to the nose ...

... a furred thickness that coats her tongue, the taste of old blood, metallic and nauseating, turning a stomach that roils in response, already emptied while unaware to judge by the smell and feel of something encrusting lips and chin ...

... the crackle and spit of flame in her ears, recognized only because of movies seen in past years ...

... the itch of unrefined wool against bare skin, skin that is covered but feels rubbed raw, toes numb, fingers numb, breath hot on cool lips ...

... another low hum, of a voice raised in chant, words she does not know and cannot follow, too quiet or too far away to make true sense of ...

... other voices, closer, louder; the rustle of clothing that is not as familiar as she thinks it should be ...

... eyes flutter, open, revealing little; no spectacles to clear the uneasy blurring of moving light that does not illuminate much, nor make sense of the closer shadows that seem to own those voices filling her ears ...

... that old familiar panic, wrapped tight in anxiety's grip, sharpening her other senses to compensate for the fact of myopic near-blindness ...

_"Well?”_

... a feminine voice, layered with anger and frustration and fear, an accent unfamiliar but words clear as day ...

_“I see no danger in either of them. The elf bears a mark that appears very similar to the magic in the Breach, but I would need to study it further. Neither elf nor human is a mage. Indeed, the human appears not to be of this world at all.”_

... this voice male, closer, lyrical with the lilting musicality associated with the valleys of Wales ...

... but elf? Elves are not real, just a story told by multiple races in multiple legends; like magic, too, a figment of the collective imagination, yet these voices share the words like fact ...

_"A demon?”  
_

_"No, nor a spirit made flesh. There is no connection to the Fade that I can perceive, Seeker. It would appear that the Breach's creation has drawn her from another world entirely, a world beyond the Fade and the Void.”_

... word upon words, sense unraveling as cadence and context are lost, an unfamiliar world view shaken still further by the enfolding fog that gathers at the corners of her mind, urging her back toward sleep against the thrashing will of anxious fear ...

_"You are certain of this, Solas? She is not simply Tranquil?”_

_"As certain as anyone may be, Seeker Cassandra. Without seeing her conscious, there is no way to tell if she is Tranquil or not, but given the reports of her extreme response to her arrival here, Tranquility is not a burden she carries.”_

... some drowsy flicker of amusement cuts through the dizzying clamor of unconsciousness gaining a foothold; tranquility is the last thing she has _ever_ carried ...

_"I would need to study a rift more closely, but I do not believe your human here is anything but an innocent bystander. She may not even recognize our world as real when she wakes.”_

... _our_ world, _their_ world, _my_ world, how many worlds did there need to be? This world was a dream, a nightmare, a stolen moment from the subconscious even now asserting itself ...

_"For now, the Breach is our most pertinent difficulty. Do you believe the prisoner can close it?”  
_

_"I believe so. But should the Breach be closed, the other will never return to her own world, if it is even possible for her.”_

... prisoner is a word that cuts through the enclosing fog, sets her heart to thumping, her fear to a level she thought she had left behind long ago; the certainty in the man's voice that closing whatever this breach was would leave her stranded here, in this impossibility where everything was familiarly familiar, like a race memory plucked from the ether on a starlight night in winter ...

_"That is unfortunate, but not our immediate concern. The mark is stable?”  
_

_"For now, but it will keep expanding with the Breach until it kills him.”_

... yet even the prospect of someone's death is lost as she loses her battle to stay focused, at the mercy of the throbbing in her head, the heaviness of her eyes, drifting into that oblivious state to the tune of the woman's final words ...

_"Then we had best pray that the Maker wakes him soon. Come, there is much to be done.”_

 

* * *

 

Newfound consciousness, and a world that is not her own ...

... hard eyes in a blurry face, the angry voice from before demanding answers she cannot give at sword point ...

... without assistance, she cannot see clearly; does not _want_ to see clearly, fear bubbling at the edges of her mind, choking her throat, clouding her thoughts, tears threatening and pushed aside only through a lifetime of habit and practice ...

... a gentler voice, but no less hard; a flash of red hair beneath a purple cowl; some sense of understanding about her plight, but no answers for solving it ...

... too much information, too many questions, too much that is unfamiliar and frightening, no anchor to cling to, no solid ground beneath her thoughts, no prospect of the nightmare ending ...

... she crumbles, tears falling, panic rippling, hands flailing to keep everyone and everything at bay ...

... the brush of gloved hands on bare, chilled arms, a suggestion of metal at her back, fur against her cheek, and a quiet voice, male, English, warning her to be calm ...

... the Welshman's voice again, his presence inserting itself, gentle cadence and sense of confidence calming to an anxious heart already terrified at the implication of this place ...

... a cup offered, wine made bitter with some unknown drug, and fear blossoms again, even as darkness overwhelms her ...

 

* * *

 

Nuns in unfamiliar habits, praises to a god she has never heard of, some with kind eyes, some with haunted pain, all bearing grief for what she now learns has been a catastrophe ...

... a church; no, a _chantry_ , they call it, stark stone walls and candlelight, filled with the ever-present hum of something they revered as the Chant of Light ...

... a name, Haven, this place that is filled with chaos and pain, cast into green murk by the swirling clouds above they call the Breach ...

... a breach of what, she asks, and they give her little in the way of answer; they speak of the _Fade_ and the _Void_ , of _demons_ and _magic_ , and her mind rebels against the very idea ...

... this is not England, not Earth, not even a past she can dimly recall from history books; they call this place Haven, Ferelden, Thedas, a place where magic is real, where elves and dwarves live side by side with humans, where demons lurk on the edge of imagination, always ready to strike ...

... the tight pain gripping her chest, knotting her stomach, is an old, familiar feeling; the chronic pain of anxiety she has learned to live with flaring anew at each tidbit of information fed to her, at the sinking feeling that this is where she may have to stay ...

... an older nun with rough hands bathes her in cold water already used by four others, dries her, dresses her in clothes that do not fit and do not feel right, all leather and wool and fur, real fur; binds her damp hair into a braided crown, and pronounces her fit to be seen ...

... eyes watering with the effort of trying to see with myopic vision, a headache already blooming from the heavy scent of incense and smoke from torches, she stands quietly in a back room of the chantry, listening to the voices she has come to recognize arguing over what must be done with her ...

_... I want to go home ..._

"So long as the Breach remains, I do not see that it should be difficult.”

... the Welshman, whom she has learned is an elf, a mage unsupervised, and distrusted because of those facts, yet his opinion on this magic is considered to be expert ...

_... I want to go home ..._

"My scouts report a number of rifts in this area that require the Herald to close them.”

... the French lilt of the purple-cowled woman; no, not French; she says she is Orlesian ...

_... I want to go home ..._

"They must be closed, or the refugees will continue to be in danger.”

... another voice; this one male, calm, quiet, emanating from the other elf that stands near her, his left hand flickering with eerie green light ...

_... I want to go home ..._

"And if your calculation is wrong, we will be sending an innocent woman to a terrible death.”

... a third man's voice, frustrated, impatient; the owner a hazy wall of fur and metal whose only concern seems the safety of those around him ...

_... I want to go home ..._

"Perhaps we should ask her.”

... the second elf’s suggestion, gesturing with his flickering palm toward her silent tension ...

... she feels their collective gaze, their concern, their irritation at her mere presence; raises her eyes, and speaks in a voice she barely recognizes as her own ...

"I want to go home.”

... a pause, punctuated with what she assumes are nods, sighs, some understanding of her own desires; the purple-cowled woman taps the table before her ...

“ This is the nearest rift, not more than an hour's march from Haven.”

"My people will escort you, Herald, and your charge.”

... the fur-clad man, this time in tones of resignation, that English accent something she has been told marks him as Fereldan ...

"We'll leave as soon as we can.”

... the green-marked elf, his own voice ringing with purpose, turning to look down at her as she hugs herself ...

“We will find a way to send you home, lady.”

... a low sigh from across the table, an awkward gesture from the fur-clad soldier ...

“Maker watch over you, lady.”

 

* * *

 

Boots that pinch at the heel and flap at the toes, tied on with strips of leather, crunching through snow, stumbling over rocks that would not be hidden if she just had her glasses ...

... the constant presence of the lyrical-voiced elf mage, Solas, at her side, eager to ask about her world, her experiences, filling her aching head with words upon words until they have no meaning ...

... an interjection from beyond him, a voice she would class as American, were he not half her height and armed with a crossbow, telling the elf to back off and leave her be, a surge of gratitude for this faceless dwarf who seems to understand her anxiety-shuttered tongue ...

... a sharp crackle of something ahead, a fierce flare of green from the Herald's hand, and suddenly a fresh hand on her arm, holding her back from following as others rush forward ...

... that sickly green light clouding what little clarity of vision remains to her, tendrils stretching out from a central mass, wavering, solidifying, the air filled with the screech of things she is not entirely sorry she cannot see clearly ...

... a chaos of sound as she is pushed back behind armed men and women, for what is the point of this if she is already dead before the rift is made safe to pass through? ...

... the sickening sound of blades through flesh, a sound before only heard in butcher's shops, from cleavers on dead meat, but now from swords through living limbs; the twang of bow strings, flat and heavy, the whistle of projectiles through the air to sink into the uncertain enemy or clatter harmlessly away ...

... one wave, two, and sudden silence, broken only by the crackle and snap of the green mass in the midst of the forward fighters, the rift they intended to send her through, send her home ...

... the elven voice - not Solas, but the other, the Herald - calls to her, and the protective bodies part, hands urging her forward as she stumbles toward him, frightened to go, terrified of staying ...

... the rift pulsates before her, just a foot or so off the ground, easy to step into from where she stands; the Seeker's voice behind them, calling that it must be now, before others come through ...

... a warm hand on her shoulder, the Herald's quiet voice urging her to have courage, and she does find courage in those quiet words, from this quiet man who seems to want only what is best for her ...

... another sharp snap from the swirling mass of green light; a flinch from the woman standing before it; she straightens her shoulders and steps inside ...

... weightless, senseless, surrounded and enveloped, the actinic tingle of a gathering storm on a dry night in summer, coarse taste of metal filling her mouth, deafening silence muffling her ears, blinded by green light that pulses and sparks, a formless nothing that draws her on ...

_... home ..._

... a sense of motion, anxiety fading as relief comes to the fore, anticipating familiarity once more, intending to forget what must have been a dream, she steps out of the clinging coil ...

... into a nightmare.


	2. Chapter 2

Confused chaos surrounded her.

She fell forward as the rift behind began to pulsate, humming with a resonance that made her teeth ache ... a sound and sensation that made the pressing shadows of spindly limbs and vicious teeth howl and snarl. Sharp pain erupted as something clawed at her, tearing open the layers of fur and wool on her back to bite deep into her flesh, hot blood suddenly gushing from stinging wounds. She'd never felt anything like it; pain that was at once paralyzing and invigorating, kicking the unused primal secrets of her psyche into overdrive. Hands scrabbling for purchase on rocky ground that scratched and tore at her skin, she scrambled to her feet with a shriek, some part of her hoping that if she made enough noise, these, these ... _whatever_ they were ... would back away, would somehow become afraid of her.

No such luck. The metallic tang of her own copper-rich blood was in the air, seeping into the ragged remains of the clothing that covered her back, slick over her skin, every motion of her body agony as the wounds rippled with each muscle flex and contraction. Tears stung her eyes, streaming down her cheeks, blurring her already blurred vision until she could barely see anything at all. She threw her hands out, flinching back when she met the sickening slime of unformed flesh, the bony hardness of the clawing limbs that reached out to rake at her vulnerable form.

Panic flared - not the anxious worry that walked with her every day of her life, but real, instinctive panic, the kind of panic that makes survivors survive and death a true horror. Which would she be?

The question's answer came from her own stubbornness, her refusal to be nothing more than a footnote in her own history. She lowered her head, closed her eyes, and _screamed_ , barreling forward. Her elbows made contact with broken bodies, her shoulders pushed aside searing heat like lava flows made flesh. Something snatched at her ankle; she kicked out even as she fell, whimpering at the excruciating throb as the wounds on her back shifted with the jolt of landing, rolling away from the inhuman _things_ that reached for her. Crying and wheezing, she stilled on her back, bloodied hands raised in useless defense against the attack pressing in on all sides ... and the pulsing green of the rift she had passed through suddenly exploded outward, blinding her in the gloom as waves of that verdant light swept over and through her, setting her scalp prickling in static response to some energy she had no name for.

The things all around her, these monstrous creatures that wanted her blood, howled as the light caught them, writhing in torment that was suddenly silenced as, with barely more than a soft slap, the light was gone. _They_ were gone. All that remained was her, blubbering like a child, acutely aware of pain and fear and the intense certainty that she was a dead woman whose heart was somehow still beating.

This wasn't home. This ... was not a good place to be.

Still wheezing, still whimpering, still shaking with shock and injury and the wrongness that surrounded her, she let the panic of her instinct take charge, rolling painfully to her knees, pushing high to her feet, and stumbling, staggering, running away. She didn't know where she was going, she didn't know where she was. She just had to get _away_.

Lurching, careening, she had no sense of direction, no coherent thought, her mind focused on the pain that wracked her body with each jarring step, each trip over some unseen obstacle that rose beneath her oversized boots. More hurts crowded in to feed her adrenalin-fueled rush, from the ache in her right ankle to the bruising sting in her palms, to the crushing, breath-stealing wheeze in her chest as her lungs struggled to sustain her flight. Wetness stained her pants, a tribute to the terror that held her in thrall, the sodden cloth cool and chafing between her thighs, friction-sharp stinging to add to her growing misery and slow her stumbling steps.

She couldn't run forever. Hell, she could barely run for five minutes, and it felt as though that barrier had been passed hours ago. Broken, gasping for breath, her legs buckled beneath her, sending her crashing to her knees to curl up into a quivering ball, waiting for breath, or death, to come back for her. Eyes squeezed shut, she gripped her knees tight, ignoring the pain, the struggle to calm her breathing, just wanting everything to end.

This was wrong. This wasn't home. She wanted _home_.

Home, with all its familiar imperfections, stresses, comforts and conveniences, was so far from this place. She shouldn't be here. She shouldn't be lying on some rocky slime under a green sky, listening to wind she couldn't feel against her hair or her skin, shaken by some vibration that seemed never-ending through ground that both supported her and yet did not seem solid enough to hold even a feather's weight. She was alone, and she shouldn't be. Despite everything, all the pains and upsets in her lifetime thus far, she had never been so totally alone as she was right now. No sound of people anywhere around her. Just the whispering of that motionless wind, the rumble of rocks grinding without moving, the oppressive sensation of being watched by unseen, faceless monsters.

Nothing felt right. Nothing felt real.

So what _was_ real?

Her name was Erin MacNamara. She was twenty-six years old. Her hair was brown. Her eyes were brown. She needed glasses to see anything clearly beyond an inch past her own nose. She knew the underlying ache in her chest like an old friend - anxiety that fueled depression that in turn fueled anxiety, constant companions since she was fifteen years old. Those were _real_ facts, truths she could cling to in the here and now. She was herself. And despite the best efforts of monsters and nightmares and idiot bald elves who made stupid plans that threw her directly into the arms of said monsters and nightmares, she was _alive_.

Not much, but a good place to start. What else?

Breathing, that was good. In pain, that wasn't so good. But as unused as she was to physical pain like this, she was aware enough of her own body to be able to take stock without moving a muscle. Pain was good place to start ... well, not _good_ , but a start. Focusing on where it flared told her more than she would learn by ignoring it. There was the clinging, stinging, pin-prick stretch of scabs trying to form over what seemed the whole of her back each time she took a breath, or tried to move, but the hot flood of blood that had accompanied that injury seemed to have stopped. Both hands stung, bloodied and abraded by her scrabble over the rock, sweat from her headlong rush pricking in minuscule cuts. Her left shoulder was throbbing with dry heat, wool and linen sticking to the edges of a burn she had not even noticed herself receiving. Her right ankle also throbbed, but that was a duller pain - a muscle pulled, not a bone broken or skin torn open. Oddly, that was comforting. She wasn't going to die of these injuries. Not yet, anyway.

So that was _her_. What about _here?_

Cautiously, she lifted her forehead from its press against her knees, inwardly cursing at the shifting slither of tingling agony in her back even as she drew breath more easily. She blinked, trying to clear her vision. It didn't work. Her eyes were all but useless without her glasses, everything more than a few inches in front of her a misty glow of contrasting color. Well, not exactly color. Everything was green, or white, or a brown so dark it could be black. Worse, it all seemed to be moving without motion, confusing her already dim sight with a blurring mess she had no chance of focusing on. She could feel the headache starting between her brows, always there when she was without her glasses for more than a few minutes.

Still, she didn't seem to be in immediate danger. There were no shadows lurking, no spindly arms with claws or screeching nightmares reaching for her. That was ...

Erin sighed. She couldn't stay here. Comforting as it was to lie on the ground curled around herself, it was not helpful in any way, shape, or form. She was going to have to get up, put on her metaphorical big girl knickers, and be pro-active. And despite the familiar worried ache flickering in her chest, she knew she could do it. Pick your battles, that was the mantra she lived by. So the battle she was picking right now was this one - to get up, and find a way out of this hellhole, preferably before anything else tried to kill her.

_So ... uncurl. Onto your knees. Ignore the pain, it won't kill you. Fuck, I'm tired. Don't you dare. Push up with your hands, up, up onto your feet. Stand straight. You're up. Half the battle won already._

Upright, this strange green-touched place looked no more or less inviting than it had at ground level. The wind she could hear all around her was a trick of her senses. It had to be. She couldn't feel it against herself, not even the faintest of ruffling through her disheveled hair, but all this mist around her was still moving. Despite herself, she raised a hand, pushing her fingers into the nearest mass of nothingness ... and _felt_ nothing. No dampness, no motion, no chill or heat. Nothing at all. Frowning, she turned her eyes toward her feet, wincing as she put her weight onto her throbbing right to stamp the left down against the ground beneath her. It was definitely there, but at the same time ... she didn't really feel it at all. It wasn't rough or smooth, not even definably solid. It just _was._

"Weird."

Even the sound of her own voice was odd here. Muted, hollow, as though she was hearing it through a roll of cardboard from some great distance. As though the sound itself did not belong.

As though _she_ did not belong.

With that thought, a prickle of belated caution made itself known, raising a hand in the back of her mind to point out that she was right about that. She didn't know where she was, how she'd got there, or how to get out. Maybe pondering the physical matter around her was best left to her memory after she wasn't totally isolated in an impossible nightmare.

Something rushed past her ear, a sudden sensation of air in motion, startling her into a quaking jump that seemed to come from every muscle in her body, jerking painfully at the injuries that littered her form. She lurched sideways, peering with squinting eyes at the swirling mist, trying to force her sight to cooperate to the best of its ability. Something moved inside that swirling blur, seeming to turn and come back toward her. It didn't seem to have any shape - just a small twisting mass of slightly denser mist, a wisp of coiling fog that seemed to move independently of the wider cloud around her. She jerked backward as that little scrap came to an abrupt halt right in front of her face, close enough to be in focus if there had been anything to focus on.

And there it stayed, twisting in on itself, swaying tendrils thick enough to see even with her poor sight uncoiling to reach toward her. She felt the end of one of them stroke against her cheek, her throat clogged with fear ... and felt the fear subside slowly. This little wisp of nothing seemed to have some kind of sentience, but she got the distinct impression that it didn't want to hurt her. She couldn't have said _how_ , but she was sure it was curious about her, a playful kind of curious that wanted to know more. It circled her slowly, seeming to understand that she was a little afraid of it, those coiling tendrils reaching out to touch her half-undone hair, the tattered remains of blood-stained cloth hanging from her back, the hand she raised toward it. She felt again the gentle pressure of its mass as it twisted itself through her fingers, and to her surprise, felt the urge to giggle. It was playing with her!

"Hello," she ventured uncertainly, wriggling her fingers gently in the midst of it. A hesitant smile flickered on her face as it writhed around her hand, wrapping itself in a loop about her wrist. "I don't think _you're_ going to try and eat me, are you?"

Another indefinable moment of certainty seemed to stretch through her - no, it didn't want to eat her. It liked her, for whatever reason. She jumped at the sensation of something else by her ear, head turning with a sharp motion to find a tangle of her own hair being manipulated by another little wisp of misty nothingness. Another came out of the enveloping fog, and another, dancing puffs of dense smoke that  brushed gently against her cheeks, her arms, playing with her hair until finally she _did_ laugh. Helplessly, admittedly, but it was a laugh. And it was so much better than crying.

"All right," she said finally, tugging her hair out of the grasping tendrils that were still curling it back and forth. "Thank you. But this isn't helping me. I don't know what to do. I don't even know where I am."

The impression she got back from the twirling wisps was one of profound confusion, as though she _should_ know where she was. One of them - she thought it was the first one - brushed close against her cheek, offering some sort of reassurance. At least, she assumed it was reassurance. However these things were communicating with her, they _were_ communicating. It might only be feelings, but for someone who had spent a lifetime perfecting the art of not feeling _anything_ just in case it was bad, this gentle play of sweetness through her aching heart was almost exactly what she needed in this moment.

She gasped as one of them swept around behind her back, nudging at the open wounds she had almost forgotten were there, hissing through her teeth as tears sprang into her eyes. Almost immediately, that nudging presence was gone, the lashing sensation of her pain frightening the little wisps away from her as she buckled, squeezing her eyes shut for a long moment. It stole her breath, the pinprick flash of ripping agony paralyzing her muscles, holding her in a torturous limbo as gradually the acute sensation faded once again. A gentle brush against her cheek drew her eyes open again, blinking away those tears to watch as the wisp swept away and came back to her. Once, twice. The third time, it moved just to the edge of her ability to focus on it and stayed there, twisting in on itself with the distinct feeling that it was waiting for her.

"You ... you want me to follow you?" she asked, not expecting a reply. It just felt a little more normal to speak to the thing as though it was a person, rather than a cute little figment of her apparently formless imagination.

The little wisp expanded and contracted, movements big enough for her to discern it from the swirling mist that clung to the strangeness of this landscape. Erin bit her lip, glancing around as though someone might be able to make absolutely certain of what she thought she was being asked to do. But there was no one there. It was just her, and this sweet manifestation of whatever it was, beckoning to her in some indefinable way.

She sighed wearily. "What have I got to lose?"

She started walking. Well, limping. That ankle was definitely putting a list in her gait, but it wasn't difficult to walk on. Just a sprain, then. That was a blessing. In this isolated, unfamiliar, almost soundless place, she was going to have to take her blessings where she could find them. Thus far, the list was a short one - she was alive, she wasn't as badly hurt as she'd first thought, and something that may or may not be real was trying to be her friend. As victories went, it wasn't spectacular, but Erin had learned a long time ago that not every victory was glorious. Sometimes, just getting out of bed in the morning was a victory to be celebrated.

It would have been an easier trek if she'd been able to see clearly. But perhaps it was just as well she couldn't. She was aware of vague shapes in the green-lit fog that swirled about her - human shapes, perhaps - the suggestion of voices just on the edge of hearing that grew no louder or clearer no matter how hard she concentrated on them. The landscape, too, was still indefinable in a way she couldn't put her finger on. Nothing changed, though it felt as though she had been walking for hours. Just enveloping fog that parted in front of her, that sensationless wind rippling through it, and somewhere in the distance, looming over everything, a dark mass that might have been a castle, or a city. Whatever it was, it never came any closer. It was just there, a brooding darkness that seemed to cast everything into shadow in a place where there was no discernible source of light.

There was no heat here, or cold. It wasn't comfortable, but it wasn't _un_ comfortable, either. No sound, save the howling wind that touched everything else but not her, and those distant voices. No people, but for the strange shapes buried in the gloom, and her flitting little companion and its friends. The air tasted greasy, metallic, like dry air just before a lightning strike, a build up of static with nowhere to discharge. She wasn't alone, exactly; there was the feeling of eyes watching her from the gloom, but even her most basic instinct was unworried by them. They didn't feel hostile. But with only herself to be truly aware of - her own heartbeat, the aching sting of cuts and burns and sprains - the downward spiral of her own thoughts was difficult to contain.

What was the point of walking anywhere? There was nowhere to go. A nightmare that had begun with dozing off in the shower of all places had resulted in her being knocked out by some idiot with more muscles than sense. Days of being cold, confined, while hard women interrogated her for information she could not even begin to make sense of. Even when they were sure of her innocence, she had been bustled about and treated like an idiot, given no reassurance, their minds clearly on something far more pressing than the presence of a stranger who knew nothing about anything around them. Her impression had been of some kind of medieval village - men and women dressed in hard-wearing wool, in plate armor and chain-mail, bearing swords and shields. Everywhere lit with candles and torches, snow more than ankle-deep on the ground, the sky marred by a swirling vortex of green ... light that matched the green surrounding her now. It had been a place of fear and tension, primitive to her modern mind but honest in its intention. They had done their best with what little they knew to try and return her to her own world. However it had been done, she was here now. And if she was honest with herself, even getting back to that primitive chaos would be preferable to staying here until she starved to death.

The darkness of her mood was beginning to pall, a familiar sucking sensation dragging at her thoughts, trying to bleed any sense of hope or purpose from her even as she followed her new friends in their dancing coil through the verdant mists. Ah, yes, that other old friend, always ready to pounce when her spirits were low, sapping her motivation to keep going. But this was an old war she had been fighting for more than ten years, ever since she had found out for certain what her enemy was, and she had tricks of her own she could deploy against it. Keeping her mood up, that was the first line of defense. She wasn't so low yet that it would not have any effect.

Words rose in her mind, and without thinking, she put voice to them, ignoring the hollow distance of her own voice to sing one of the songs that made her smile. _Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens ..._

Around her, the little wisps seemed delighted with the sudden music, their energetic sweeping through the air excited as they found the rhythm of the song and began to dance to it. And despite herself, her loneliness, her sense of despair, Erin smiled as she sang, glad that she wasn't just pleasing herself with this shield against the depression that lurked in her psyche. From musicals to pop songs, to folk songs she had learned to please her father when she was just a tween, she filled the cloudy air around her with as much music as she could make, all the while walking onward, forcing herself not to focus on unhappy thoughts, or on brutal realities. To ignore the pain and fear. Far better, for now, to focus on the songs that brightened her mood, and the playful enjoyment of the little wisps that were her only company in this desolate, dream-like place.

She couldn't have said how long she walked, not in this place that sucked her senses away from her and made a mess of time passing, but eventually she found she could make out a brilliant blue glow in the fuzziness ahead of her. The little wisps skipped and twisted in the air, ushering her toward the source of that glow with playful brightness. As she grew closer, it began to come into focus - spiked crystals of some kind, glowing effervescent blue in a cluster that seemed to thrust up from the non-rock at her feet. There was a sound, too; the barest hum vibrating in the air, through the ground, striking up through her body to make her scalp tingle.

Pausing beside the outcrop of brilliant crystal, she hesitated, tilting her head toward her wispy little companion.

"You wanted me to see this?" she asked, though she knew there would be no answer she could describe. Her myopic vision turned back to the glowing mineral once more. "It's very pretty."

The wisp seemed to flip over and turn in on itself, swirling through the air to nudge at her hanging arm, urging her hand to rise toward the azure spikes thrusting toward what passed for a sky in this uncomfortably odd place. Erin frowned, her other hand rising to pinch at the bridge of her nose, aware of the familiar ache behind her brow that always throbbed when she was without her glasses.

"You want me to touch it?"

The little wisp of ... whatever it was ... stroked her still-outstretched hand, giving off a distinct sense of _yes_ in answer to her query. Those fog-like tendrils tugged at her fingers, gentle but firm in its intent. It clearly wanted her to touch the glowing blue of the crystal outcrop, but she couldn't help hesitating.

Was it really wise to just touch something she knew nothing about? What if it hurt her? Correction; hurt her more than she was already hurt. She hadn't forgotten the stinging tug of split and scabbing skin at her back, or the throbbing ache of her shoulder and ankle. What if touching this tingling thing, pretty though it was, ended up exacerbating those injuries? She was fairly sure her vaguely incorporeal friend didn't mean her any harm, but it wasn't human, was it? How could it possibly know how touching that crystal would affect her? However certain it appeared to be, it was a risk just to be thinking about this at all. Maybe the wiser course would be to make the little thing touch it first ... But even that wouldn't prove anything. She'd already told herself - it wasn't human. Whatever happened to it would not necessarily happen to her. No, she decided, the wisest course would be to gently but firmly refuse. That couldn't do any harm, could it?

As she stood there, debating with herself what she should or should not do, the wisp seemed to lose patience. It swept about to her back, and with a painful rush against her exposed wounds, the little scrap of mist barged her bodily forward. Erin cried out as agony erupted from the injuries that littered her body, staggering to stay upright. Her hands automatically reached out to steady herself, grasping fingers wrapping tight about the cone-like spikes of glowing blue that thrust up from the ground beside her.

The moment her skin touched the crystal, _something_ happened. So fast she could barely follow it, and yet so intense that every millisecond was engraved on her memory. The crystal's glow flared so brightly it almost blinded her; in the same moment, she felt the strangest sensation rise from her toes to the top of her tingling scalp, almost like she had jumped into a icy pool of water only to find that the coldest part was the barest sliver of a layer at the very top. Heat followed in the same rippling wave, following the same path; a heat born of her blood pumping faster about her body, warming skin momentarily chilled a mere heartbeat before. She felt her ankle seem to expand and contract, the throbbing agony of a sprained limb draining upward with the pull of that liquid heat, infecting the muscles of her leg with the memory of an aching injury that had not been inflicted. The same seemed to happen to her back - a new sense of tightness, the unnerving feeling of scabs peeling away from her skin, painful but yet not painful in the same moment. Her shoulder, too, benefited from that passage of ice and fire; the dry crispness of burned flesh suddenly supple and sore, even as static discharged above her head, her hair trying to stand on end as she found herself shuddering to shake off the sheer oddness of that sensation.

"What the _fuck_ was that?"

She hadn't actually intended to swear. Or to sound so aggressive. But then, she never intended to sound aggressive. It was something that just happened, usually when her constant anxiety flared to a point where she couldn't control it. Whatever the hell had just happened, it had not been her choice. And in lieu of adding yet more fear to the gnawing terror underlying her every thought, her next resort was anger.

Well, irritation. Anger was one of those emotions she hadn't truly felt for years, along with just about every other tried and true emotion everyone else in the world seemed to feel without any trouble at all. Irritation was all she'd allowed herself to feel since her teens, and even then, it never lasted long.

The little wisp of whatever was flitting about in front of her, apparently very pleased with itself. She straightened up, intending to give it a piece of her mind, and felt her skin crawl as something sloughed off her back. She twisted, raising her hand to her back to tentatively touch the abused area ... and suddenly realized that twisting had not hurt. _Nothing_ hurt anymore. There was no throb in her ankle, no stinging tug on her back, no aching dryness on her shoulder. Her questing fingers found no scab, no blood. The vaguely brown thing on the not quite real ground must have been the forming scab sloughing off now it was no longer required. But how ...?

The important thing, Erin realized, was not to panic. There was no point in freaking out over the fact that one of her major problems had just been solved. All right, so she didn't know _how_ it had been solved; how, exactly, touching a glowing crystal crop could somehow heal injuries that should have taken weeks to heal ordinarily. But then ... that bald guy, the Welsh one who said he was an elf, he'd said something about magic, hadn't he? And the others, too. They had been convinced that magic was a real thing, that magic was responsible for whatever had happened to her in the first place. And she was in an indefinably unreal sort of place, with an apparently sentient puff of mist as her only companion. She had no logical explanation for this, and even if she'd had the aptitude for science, she doubted there was a scientific one for it, either. So magic would just have to do, at least for now.

"All right," she said slowly, turning to face the swirling dance of her apparently helpful but definitely pushy new friend. She squinted, trying to focus on the wisp's coiling bounce through the air, inwardly cursing her abominable sight once again. "But that wasn't a very nice trick. You might have hurt me, you know."

The little wisp rushed toward her, the very slight pressure of its touch stroking her cheek for a moment before it rolled down her arm, winding itself about her fingers. Despite herself, despite her annoyance, Erin felt her lips twitch, wanting to smile as waves of sheer delight seemed to wash over her from the ridiculous thing.

"No, I'm serious," she attempted to continue, even as her smile broke free at the playful silliness that was scolding something that didn't seem to have any understanding of worry or anxiety. "This is ... this is serious. You can't get around me by being cute. Trust me, I have a cat. It never works."

Except it always worked, and it was working right now. She rolled her eyes, letting herself laugh at the ridiculous situation she found herself in. The wisp seemed to pulse in time with her laughter, short though it was.

"Oh, fine," she conceded. "Yes, it was a good idea. Thank you. Happy now?"

The little thing seemed to flip over on itself. Even with her terrible eyesight, she could see it wiggling around, as though dancing with delight at being proved right. And again, she felt herself laugh. It wasn't much of a laugh - more a rushed exhalation that carried the potential for amusement - but it _felt_ like a laugh. That was what mattered.

"Fine." Erin sighed, raising a hand to brush her palm over the disheveled braid wrapped about her head, wincing at the dried blood clinging to the hanging strands. "But this doesn't solve my problem, you know."

She eased herself to sit down on the strange impermanence of what she was deeming to be the ground for now, feeling as though a world of exhaustion wanted to squash her flat as a pancake. She'd been tired before - God knew, she was intimately acquainted with being tired. You name the type, she'd felt it; mental, physical, emotional ... but this fatigue seemed to drum into her bones, weighing her down until it felt like an effort just to keep breathing. It was more than tired, it was ...

... an old friend, an old enemy. An adversary she had been battling on and off for years, often in silence, never spoken of except to a very select few who at least knew how to pretend they understood the lack of motivation that made it so difficult sometimes just to get out of bed in the morning. The bane of her teens, when she hadn't known it had a name, when she had thought it was just some defect that belonged solely to her that she had to take pains to cover up. It had almost defeated her once or twice over time, but she knew she had been lucky in the circumstances each time.

The first savior had been in the smile of a complete stranger, someone who hadn't known this teenager weeping over the price of a drink in a convenience store was on her last thread - a smile and the kindness to buy that drink for her had been enough to prevent the well-thought-out plan in her mind from being executed. The second savior ... Damn, she didn't even remember what it was that had pierced her overwhelmingly morbid self-pity and self-hatred to prevent her the second time. How shit was that? She knew it had happened, she knew _someone_ had intervened without knowing they were doing it, but she just could not remember. Had it really been as bad as all that? Had she really been so close to giving up that not even her own mind wanted to remember?

She didn't remember the details, but the _feeling_ ... she remembered that. The cloaking, choking, thought-clogging feeling that settled into every part of her, making every breath a struggle, every positive thought a mocking scream, every attempt to move an attempt to lift Mount Everest at its base. What was the point of moving, of thinking, of breathing? No one would miss her. No one would even notice she was gone. No one would know the difference if she just lay here and gave up for good.

"Get up."

The sound of another voice in this strange, shifting nowhere-land was enough to startle her out of her miserable thoughts. Erin's head snapped up, every muscle tensed, ready to run, peering into the swirling mist made more impenetrable by her lack of glasses. There was ... a figure there? Not a human figure, she was sure. It had the right shape, it probably even had the right features, but it was all in shades of white and gray, and when it spoke ... it didn't feel as though the words were arriving in her mind via her ears. It was almost as though she didn't need her ears to hear whatever this was before her.

"Who are you?" she asked, fear giving her words a hostile edge she had not intended.

The figure moved toward her, and she lurched back, surprised to see it halt in response to her instinctive need for distance. It sighed - a weary sound in the misty shadows, as though she was already more work than it had wanted to encounter.

"I am Purpose," it told her. "And you do not belong here, mortal."

She shook her head, still leaning back even as she peered up to try and force her pitiful eyesight into giving her just a little detail about the figure standing over her.

"Purpose isn't a name," she heard herself object, wondering why, of all the things she could have said, she chose to lead with that one.

The figure seemed to find that amusing. It didn't laugh; if it smiled, she wasn't close enough to be able to see it. No, it was more a sense that she had said something funny, and being laughed at was, while regrettably familiar, not something Erin particularly enjoyed.

"I am Purpose," the figure responded as she scowled up at it. "A _spirit_ of Purpose. And you, mortal, have need of me."

"Well, I have a name, and it's not mortal," she snapped back at it, cringing back as he leaned down to her.

She was helpless to resist the cool fingers that wrapped about her arm, drawing her up onto her feet with barely any effort at all. And the hand retreated as soon as she was upright, seeming to respect her desire not to be touched. Yet the figure just stood there in silence, watching her as she hugged herself, trying to come to terms with the fact that this eerie place had not only entertaining little wisps of nothing, but sentient beings of some kind as well.

"Can you answer questions?" she asked, wishing - not for the first time - that she'd been born with eyes that hadn't deformed over time to shrink her focused sight down to a couple of inches in front of her own nose.

The being - this spirit of Purpose, whatever that meant - inclined its head to her slowly. Erin drew in a deep breath, her mind racing. There were so many questions she wanted answered, but she needed to know the answer to only one with any kind of urgency.

"How do I get out of here?"

This seemed to surprise the spirit.

"Ah," it said, its voice a strange fusion of male and female and some echoing unearthliness. "It would appear you have not such need of me as first it seemed. You have some purpose about you, mortal."

"Look, if you're just here to point out that I'm depressed, alone, and totally out of my depth, then you can leave," she flared, stung by the superior tone. First it had laughed at her, and now it was just being obtuse. "Either tell me how to get out of here, or go away and let me die in peace."

The spirit was silent for a long moment. Then it seemed to come to some sort of decision, movement in the mist suggesting it had nodded.

"You must be removed from this place," it declared. "Twice before have mortal forms entered the Fade, and the first time they brought down doom upon all the world."

She opened her mouth to scoff, but shuddered as a sudden certainty passed over her. In a way not unlike the way she had understood the little wisps in their wish to help her, she suddenly knew this spirit spoke the truth. She couldn't have said how she knew, or even if she believed it, but the chill that seemed to coil through her stomach at those last words was a visceral feeling she did not want to explore.

"And ... the second time?" she ventured, not entirely sure she wanted to know.

The spirit considered this before answering.

"He entered bearing a mark of magic not intended for him," it said, almost thoughtfully. "Demons were drawn to him, sent to destroy him by one of their own more powerful than our kind should grow. Yet he escaped back into the mortal world. Where he walks now, I cannot tell. It is not my custom to walk with those whose purpose is so clear to them."

"So there _is_ a way out of here." Erin couldn't keep the relief out of her voice even if she'd tried. She did not like this strange, shifting place where nothing felt exactly real. Even being dropped in a rubbish tip would be preferable to being here, and she knew the sorts of things that were considered rubbish.

"Indeed," the spirit agreed. "The way out for you is the way in which you entered - through blood and fire and demons' breath, through a tear that opens your world to this faded realm."

She hesitated. That did not sound exactly promising ... but it was better than just sitting here, waiting to starve to death. It sounded familiar, too; those strange people who had thought they could get her home had talked about sending her through a rift. She supposed that rift must have been the green light she'd jumped into at their suggestion. She also supposed she couldn't really blame them for not realizing she would end up here. Whether she liked it or not, she was here, and if here meant she was about to jump back into that strange place with strange people who thought magic was real and yet didn't understand what a toilet was, then so be it. Anything was better than this formless nothingness. Erin squared her shoulders, ignoring the trickling feeling over her skin as the shredded remains of cloth on her back shifted with the motion.

"All right," she said, loosing a long breath as she gathered the dregs of whatever courage she had about herself. "Is there one of these rift things nearby?"

The spirit nodded. "If you are willing, I will guide you there," it suggested. "You may yet have need of me to fortify yourself before pressing through the throng that surrounds it."

"Gee, thanks for that."

Sarcasm may have been the lowest form of wit, but right now, holding onto her rapidly thinning bravery seemed to be a necessity by any means. A _throng_ of what the spirit called demons? Oh yes, that sounded _so_ much better than dying of starvation in a place that wasn't quite real.

The comment seemed to go unnoticed by her strange companion, who simply turned and began to walk through the mists, leaving her to hurry along behind it. Or was it a him? Or a her? The shape seemed male, now she had the opportunity to sneak a few glances at it from a decent distance, but she had the distinct impression that, even if her eyesight had been perfect, there would have been a certain unformed feeling to the being walking at her side, almost as though it had chosen to take on a shape that she would find familiar, but with which it had no familiarity itself.

They walked for what seemed an eternity and just a few minutes at the same time. This strange, shifting place that had no landmarks bar that looming darkness that might have been a city, or any real discernible changes in geography, appeared to play as much with time as it did with all her other senses. There had to be _some_ purpose to their perambulations, though, didn't there? After all, the thing - person - spirit had said it was called _Purpose_.

"Where are we going?" she ventured to ask, glancing into the swirling mist as yet another murmur of indecipherable voices sounded to her left.

"There is an opening, not far from here," the spirit told her, in its unusually choral voice. It seemed to notice her unease. "Be not a-feared of the voices you hear, mortal. The dreamers will not notice your presence, unless they be mages."

"Dreamers?"

Curiosity overcame her confused fear enough to prompt that query, though Erin thought she should probably be keeping her mouth shut. The more she learned about this place, the worse it seemed.

"This place is known as The Fade by mortals," the spirit explained as they walked on through the mists, moderating its pace as she stumbled over the obstacles in their path that she could not see clearly enough to avoid. "A place where their sleeping minds visit in dreams. Only those who are blessed with magic may walk here and know they have entered, for their will has the power to affect this realm as they wish it."

"So the voices are ... dreams other people are having?" she asked, momentarily intrigued, wondering if it was possible to watch someone else dreaming without them ever knowing she was there.

"It does seem so," Purpose agreed. It slowed their pace again, raising a hand to be sure she would do the same, as sounds that were definitely not voices made themselves known in the mists ahead. "A strange opening, this one. Time itself has been warped in the making of it."

"That ... doesn't sound good," Erin heard herself say. _Doesn't sound good?_ she repeated to herself. _What is this, the understatement Olympics?_

"That is relative," the spirit told her, drawing her to a handy outcrop of that oddly solid but unformed rock. It pointed toward a green glow in the mist.

Erin peered, trying to will her myopic sight to see clearly for the first time ever. It didn't happen, but she thought she could make out shapes surrounding that nauseating pulse of light. Some seemed bulky, and others so spindly she could barely make them out. It was from them that the noises rose - inhuman roaring and hissing, a sense of possessive yearning toward what was on the other side of that light, a need to possess it, take ownership of it, corrupt it as they had been corrupted. She jumped as something brushed against her cheek, her strangled gasp softening as she recognized the flitter of the little wisps that had first befriended her when she arrived here. They must have followed her when she joined Purpose for this last leg of her journey in the ... what had it called this place? The Fade.

"What are those things?" she whispered, though a part of her did not want the answer she knew was coming.

"Kindred of mine, twisted and corrupted by their desire for mortal form," Purpose told her, its own voice not even a fraction quieter than before. "They wish only to enter the mortal realm, to possess a mortal form. Mortals name them demons."

"Wonderful," she murmured weakly, sarcasm coming to her aid again. "So all I have to do is push my way through a gang of demons that want to take over my body? What fun."

The spirit seemed to consider her for a moment. "There shall be no enjoyment in this task ahead of you," it informed her, apparently not understanding sarcasm, at least in this instance. "But it is a task you must perform. If you do not, you shall surely die here."

"Well ... better to die trying to get out than just give up, right?" she countered, trying to steel herself against what was coming.

She'd already run through one batch of those things. All right, it had hurt like hell, and she hadn't come out of it uninjured, but if there were any of those blue shiny rocks on the other side, she would at least know how to heal the worst of what she got. Still, she could feel herself growing more afraid the longer she looked, wanting and not wanting to see more detail in the things that were between her and a relatively normal environment. As she watched, the green light seemed to pulse more violently, eliciting a loud screech from the creatures around it, and they surged into that light. When the pulsing faded, there seemed to be less of them there.

"So I just jump into the light, do I?" she asked Purpose, setting her shoulders as she began the process of bracing herself to run as hard and as fast as she could. Maybe bloody-minded momentum could get her through that throng without too much injury.

"Indeed you do, Mortal-Erin," the spirit responded, and seemed amused when she blinked in surprise at hearing it say her name. "I shall go with you, at least to the moment of crossing over. At times such as these, purpose can take you a long way."

"I want to go home," she said, her voice dull for a moment. "But that isn't a option, is it? So I'll do the next best thing, and hope no one decides to toss me through another one of these rift thingies."

She felt a hand touch her shoulder, a full fingered squeeze that seemed to spread warm certainty through her that she could do this. At her other shoulder, the foremost of the little wisps brushed her cheek again, and Erin felt herself smile grimly. She wasn't as alone here as she had thought, for all that her companions were definitely not human as she knew it.

"All right," she said finally, straightening from her crouch behind the unformed rock. "Let's do this before my nerve breaks."

Whatever the spirit of Purpose had given her in that touch of its hand to her shoulder, she was prepared to make use of it, narrowing her focus down to that patch of pulsing light. That was the way out. It didn't matter that there were demons between her and it - she had to get out of here, and _that_ was her exit. She'd been hurt already in this place, and it hadn't killed her. She could handle it again. She _would_ handle it again. Memories of old injuries came back to her - of the first broken bone, and all the others that had followed it. She hadn't stopped doing what she needed to do through that pain, and this was no different. She knew she could be as stubborn as all hell when push came to shove, and it was definitely shoving now.

Taking a deep breath, she began to move forward, hoping her feet didn't catch on any of the little crops of rock that had been tripping her since she'd arrived here. She could feel Purpose and the wisps moving with her, accelerating as she broke into a jog, then a trot, and finally a full run, ignoring her body's painful protest that it did not like running and refused to fully engage in the activity unless it was absolutely necessary. Her chest was on fire long before she reached the circling demons, breath coming in painful wheezes as her legs worked, feet slamming down painfully hard on the unforgiving pseudo-rock beneath her, her streaming eyes focused on the pulsing green.

"Press on!" she heard Purpose call to her, the voice seeming at one right at her ear and far behind in the same moment. "Press on, mortal, with purpose!"

The demons at the outer rim of their thronging mass seemed to sense her approach, but as they turned to intercept her, the wisps surged forward, clouding what passed for eyes, evading claws and hands and cruel talons, sending that outer circle reeling back from Erin's passage. They snarled and howled, turning to meet her as her thumping feet drew her closer, all the while fixed on her ultimate goal - that pulsing gash of green light, her only hope of getting out of this nowhere-land. So they thought they could stop her, hmm? Well, they were in for a nasty shock. Stubbornness was next to godliness in this circumstance, and Erin had a supply of stubborn that was almost as colossal as the Sphinx. 

Without slowing her stride, she fixed the glow in the center of her vision, lowered her head, and _charged._


End file.
